Tag: Google

Haiyan and Hyatt

The world’s poor seem to bear the brunt of typhoon destruction more than the  world’s rich.

They live in The Ring of Fire. Can’t afford to move anywhere and now can’t go home.

Disaster relief is needed. But long-term and sustained recovery takes time.

We have come up with pre-fab housing that can withstand heavy storm damage.

Made out of bamboo and steel.

Every crisis carries with it embedded opportunity.  For our human family to come closer together.

To show and share our humanity and hope.

Done my part too, for having spent a year in Bataan Refugee Center.

People were labeled “refugees”. But they later become Ph Ds in Physics at University of Chicago and Berkeley.

They might invent the next Twitter and Google ( one of the founder’s parents were Russian immigrants – Ph D in Math).

Between Haiyan and Hyatt, the journey is the same: climbing out of the heap, rebuild and move on.

Heart-breaking most of the time. But Hope never fails.

As long as we believe once again in the goodness of the human family.

People who share bread with strangers. Who chip in. Who started “Habitat for Humanity“.

10,000 lives lost, or millions (during the world wars), we march on.

Work our way back to normalcy and diplomacy.

Romance and rage.

From Haiyan back to Hyatt.

The good ness of life.

As long as we survive, there is still hope.

The challenge of natural disaster should draw out what’s best in us.

Not like a deer stands frozen facing the headlight.

But the Phoenix that rises again from the ash.

It’s like two sides of the coin: death and life, destruction and reconstruction.

Now presents a challenge for designing sustainable and safe housing.

Architecture as if people matter. Economics as if people matter. Diplomacy as if people matter.

We could be among those 10,000 dead. Yet we are still here, the morning after disaster struck.

Go on and live out our lives as if people matter. Give nothing but the best if not all of yourself. That’s what it’s for.

Cyclo in the time of Google

By now, you can still see a few weather-beaten cyclos around albeit restricted to tourist quarters.

I still remember the sound of horse carriage in the streets of  old Saigon.

My kid will be lucky if she knows what a cyclo is.

She knows Google though.

Paperless and painless search. Now with semantic search.

My profile, age in particular, triggers online ads on retirement funds.

Each day, we clear out trash in our home office and online.

Meanwhile, cyclo guys paddle along, knowing that their trade is joining the ranks of old scribes, horse shoe makers and Kodak shops. And the cinema is about to close its curtain. My uncle’s cinema is now a storage.

I came back fully related to the character in Cinema Paradiso,  with nostalgia.

The underlining theme is still there: where is that old blind film projectionist/mentor ? Mine is a guitarist who has recently been out of work.

We both need a gig. Maybe it will work out for him since he has upgraded his play list on an Ipad. But not for the cyclo guy whose best day constitutes but a few passengers hauling bulky merchandise. Cyclo is now relics of a colonial past: white folks and colored coolies, on a leisurely ride along smoke-filled streets packed with motorcycles made in China. Future shock has moved on to its Third Stage (Muscle, machine and Mind), from cyclo to motor-cycle and onto Google. People are making money by a click of the mouse, and not by paddling those three-wheelers, using 21st-century skill set and not primitive strands of muscle.

Modern technology doesn’t come without criticism, starting with the Luddites onto soon-to-be-released Circle.

Consider a huge percentage of Search are on the subject of Porn, to shut it down altogether would present a dictator’s dilemma.

No turning back, or you will turn into salt. Gosh, I miss the sound of horse carriage at Ben Thanh market. I miss being skinny , vulnerable and trusting. Faith that can move mountain. That some day, I will see face to face, although only through a glass darkly in the mean time.

Wisdom comes from mistakes, not missed opportunities.

I’d rather tried and failed than failed to try.

Tell that to the cyclo guy, who ordered two glasses of sugar-cane juice, while I could barely gulp down one. All I did was googling, while he was cycling. Muscle man in the age of Machine.

 

The Remains of Print

The Post is now under new ownership. So is the iconic Newsweek. Both incidentally got taken over by jungle-like entities like Amazon and the Beast, respectively. New world order (or jungle order). The “barbarians” are once again at the gate.

New totem pole. New titanic shift, from analog to digital, from print to online.

I prefer to see this change-over than seeing the Washington Times taken over by  a then cultic figure (Moon).

Big play. Big players. The game of influence. of Soft Powers and soft-wares.

It’s the other shoe that drops (from the time of the Reformation, with the advent of the printing press).

Back then, it was the free circulation of the Bible among the mass ( oral and scribal tradition).  Now, it’s the viral popularity of an Islamic scholar studying the life of a “political”  Jesus

With Al Jazeera (the other CNN) and Amazon, we got the complete set of opinion leaders for our world.

Want to know something? go on Wikipedia.

Want to hear something? plenty of cable channels.

Want to buy something? go on Amazon.com.

Jeff was telling interviewers that his favorite book was “the Remains of the Day” (about a butler who saw the change or more likely, the decline of aristocracy in the West).

Now, he finds himself amidst another real-life decline, a paradigm shift. And all that remains of print are those Google’s scanned pages (our modern equivalent of microfiche) for researchers of historical facts.

We process information differently. In print, we interact with those fonts and we turn the pages.

Online, we are glued to the screen, and before we know it, we might click on porn pages.

Just one of the many differences.

As creatures, we have yet learned how to handle the beast.

Massive inflow of content. Sheep among wolves.

Sleepy eyes and desensitized filters.

7 billion souls, one web site (Google).

We search that which reinforces our prejudice (a priori), or when lazy, let the SEO bots dictate what we are exposed to.

All that remains are stove-pipe thinking. More alliances and armed comrades are formed. But less in original thinking.

We need another generation or two before we can handle this new change (by then, it’s a new norm).

No more memoirs in print. Just sensational up-to-the-minute expose on celebrity and consumerism.

Those who have built good “filter” will become great curators of this new information explosion.

Those who don’t, won’t.

The new divide (information gap) won’t be geographical. It will be content-rich and content-poor folks.

The the twain shall never meet.

All that remains are for the brokers to exploit, and the pipe deliverers to profit in this new “jungle” whose sole law is survival of the smartest.

In this post-print environment, we need to say farewell to prejudices. We need to learn to be childlike, to soak in new and uncomfortable piece of news. To be changed and change-agent. It will be a tearful farewell to “home”, where each morning we expect to see sunrise and newspaper delivered on the front lawn. All that remains is a new You, with all the changes in one’s life time, more than our great grandparents and later generations have ever experienced.

That’s how important this tectonic shift is. It’s a bookend to a long overdue, but necessary re-structuring: modernity and progress.

 

Search and Sedentary Life Style

It’s only been a bit more than 15 years since the Internet entered our homes (You’ve Got Mail).

Before that we got to run errand, with multiple stops e.g. at the library, bookstores and retail stores.

Now, just Google it. Price-comparison shopping, or just ordering it online.

We find friends online, learn online and practically do more things online (when someone comes up with a new app like SimCity or DropBox – now acquired Mailbox).

Around the time the Internet got to be popular, social scientists had already alarmed us about the decline of community participation (Bowling Alone). If that study were conducted today, the title would be ” The disappearance of Bowling.”

Let’s imagine that the ARPANET project did not get out for civilian use.

We would have:

– still run around to the library, searching through Dewey card catalog

– ordered from the Sears Catalogue

– played cards with friends (some still do, but not as frequent)

– gone clubbing to be seen

– treated phone, TV and computer separately (phone is personal, TV is social and computer is professional, for HR Block tax preparers).

So far, there has been a correlation, but not definite linkage, between Search (Internet) and Sedentary Life Style.

But every sign seems to point to a more mobile (on the go) computing and convergence, which at least relieves us from a desk-bound life.

I hope among the multi-tasks we find ourselves doing, walking will be one. Even McDonald now serving Egg-White Muffin.

After all there is a down side (sitting too much for too long) to even the most blessed event in human history: Search at our fingertips, and let the “bots” do the “hunting” for information.

Projecting your “Likes”

I once met a man who got a big screen TV.  It was oversized given the small dimension of his living room.

Since nearing retirement, he must have figured that it was worth the investment.

He would be projecting himself onto that screen a lot, so might as well “live” large.

A recent study about Facebook‘s Likes shows that on average we like 68 things.

It made up an average viewer’s profile. http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/story/2013/03/11/technology-facebook-likes.html

With a meaningful connection of 120 (Tipping Point), we can multiply to figure out our universe of Likes not to mention friends of friends.

We like something/someone because we project ourselves onto it/him/her, see ourselves in the situation, or find that which resonates and strikes the chords (99% gene pool we inherited and the rest were acquired at an early age).

Our neurons respond uniquely.

Big screen or small screen, we project ourselves onto them (turn off your lap top and you will see yourself reflecting on the screen).

Neil Postman studied the effect of television viewing. He concluded that the sheer amount of viewing itself was the problem.

His study (Amusing ourselves to death) was conducted before the coming of smart phone and mobile gaming.

When Apple radio and Google glasses get wide adoption, we will live in a more individualized society (each man to himself and his screen). It would render office cubicles relics of the past.

For now, at least, we can still strike a conversation even when the big screen is on across the room (or the I-pad on the dinner table).

When the screen is in front of the man (Google glasses), it would be like trying to talk to someone who “thinks different” with his or her Ipod on.

Hello!

I fear the man I met with the big screen will someday find his super-sized TV quite antiquated, and that he would have a hard time getting rid of it. First it’s he who dies with the biggest toy wins. Then, it’s less is more. Can’t they think of some other variables to play with in product design? We the adopters and consumers of technology and gadgetry will always be both victors and victims. In that vein, if you owned a boom box now, just hang on to it, and wait it out. It might turn valuable antique one day if not already.

The ball that travels North

Saw him at an Orange County club back in 1989. He was already rowdy and his parties disturbing to conservative neighbors.

And now, after all these years, shows up in North Korea, on a basketball diplomacy tour. Dennis Rodman, NBA defender. HBO’s VICE has done a surprising job of casting for sports diplomacy (Google x-CEO would be suitable for technology but not for sports diplomacy. Eric’s tour to North Korea reminded me of Bill Gates‘ visit to North Vietnam almost a decade ago). This is our 21st-century version of 1971 Ping-Pong diplomacy .

http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/03/01/with-rodman-stunt-american-reality-tv-and-north-korean-propaganda-fuse/

Sports and technology. The bridge over river Kwai.

The ball, the basket and the score board.

The elation and adrenaline.

Some even bet a horse or the farm.

Something about the heat of the game; suspenseful – time is irrelevant when that last ball travels in mid-air (even when game is over according to the clock).

Players were playing God (defying gravity and chronology).

And fans, well, were fanatics.

Fascinating and unpredictable, when a black man (blonde hair) with tatoo and pierced ears treks his way far up North. Make sure he carry an autographed ball (preferably from his friend Michael). That would make for a second display.

Travel advisory! Don’t try to imitate Rodman, just like you would trying to make the basket.

It doesn’t work every time. That’s why they call names like Magic Johnson.

That’s why there was a whole line of Nike merchandise, private label.

The magic that sells, across the cultures and across the DMZ.

The last time I saw on-screen about the region, was when they shot our fictitious James Bond until there hardly were any snow left on the ground.

Go figure! Something in this world still manages to surprise us. And however long a shot, I couldn’t have thought the man across the same room back then, would some day be seen in a North Korean basket ball court. Now his OC neighbors would sit up and watch for sure, besides offering to watch his estate, free. Hope that happen! Magic and miracle: going long to get across. Defensive game!.

Cranking up, hanging in

Post-holiday blues. Cabin fever. And the return of routine.

And the Oscar goes to……

We weeded out unwanted inventory and unfriended people.

Clearing the deck and crank up the engine.

Sports Illustrated illustrates tan and skin underneath winter jacket.

While Readers Digest finally suffers inDigestion.

Books of the Times and books of the Post.

New faces and new titles ( from “How to get filthy rich in Asia” to “A Good Son”).

I was at the opening of a branch library yesterday.

I had never seen anything like it: families lined up and singed up for library cards, as if it were Black-Friday Sales.

Since when people are that much interested in books.

It must be because of pent-up demand in this area.

Tom Clancy still pairs up with other writers to crank out humongous volumes on the genre.

While Grisham sticks with litigation.

Writers cranked up and not cramped up.

Everyone hangs in there, at least those who can still be productive and sell.

Venues might have changed i.e. Newsweek and Readers Digest out! but demand are there (Amazon’s Kindle and B&N’s nook).

I have picked up on Facebook chat (over the top platform) and found it more convenient than the old purple Yahoo messenger.

Change has come to me.

The future is now. The library has opened, but with more desktops and less bookshelves.

More best-sellers and less of the old inventory.

Of course, with no Clearance Sales, at least, not yet.

And the Oscar  goes to….some winners for sure.

I read an article about the Oscar set. It should look very magnificent on TV, with a promise to ” turn Stars into star-gazers”.

Winners or losers, Oscar or Daytona, we hang in there and move forward.

Time flows just one way. And it waits for no one. With no action, even angels leave us.

Wait not for the snow to melt. Put on those boots and march on. Get cranked up and hang not in there for too long.

Start-ups vs instutional memories

Vincent Cerf is a case in point.

He is perhaps the oldest employee at young Google. Before that, a lifer at MCI.

But you need someone who has been there, done that. Who could connect the dots (or see them at all).

Start-ups got money and the juice.

Most of, start-ups got the goods and the guts to make it happen.

Then when things fly, ROI positive and dividends paid out, things get complicated and dull.

Start-up phase is giving ways to institutionalizing process.

This is where precedent comes into play. Where expertise and wisdom are in demand.

The White House employs a few Senior Advisors for this very function.

Lately, news has a ring of the familiar: Saturday Evening Post gone, then Saturday Post Office closed.

Instagram is taking over where it used to be My Space. Dell has outlived its just-in-time idea.

And HP is HP (could have become another Lenovo).

At least we recognize the telecom bubble (Enron and AOL). So this time, someone like Vincent is needed to give wise counsel.

To see ahead of the curve. To go through the check list of that which quacks like a duck.

We need a healthy dose of self-disruption. A life unexamined is not worth living. The same with companies, and start-ups.

In the absence of wise counsel, institutions perish.

What  you don’t need is a historian (who will do a post-mortem). What you do need is someone from the inside who was from the outside, and whose comments you might not like, but desperately needed. Someone with some institutional memories to serve up a healthy dose of “you might want to take a look at this”, ” I wouldn’t do it if I were you”. They might be that embodiment and personification of the impersonal beast we call institution. In each system, we need a living and breathing wise one to serve as a speed bump. Or that they can work from the future backward, to pre-mortem a project and visualize certain death to save it.

The things they still carry

The war novel with similar title was surprisingly good. I have known about it for a while, but couldn’t get myself to “carry” it home. Until now. Until it’s translated into Vietnamese.

It’s the opposite of reading Bao Ninh‘s The Sorrows of War in English.

Both novels had the same setting, same period, same conflict, same ending (went down with whatever they were carrying, on their bodies and on their minds).

Sorry winner and lucky loser.

All the while, the sound track for that same period was Proud Mary (you don’t have to worry, for people are happy to give).

In The Things They Carried, supplies were chopper-ed in (chocolate, cigarettes and C-rations). The military industrial complex was “happy to give”, from Hartford, from MN etc…

Rolling, rolling, rolling on the river.

I could barely get through the first few chapters, reading about the members of this fictitious company as they went down, with the things they carried (one of them even carried sleeping pills – for eternal rest).

We can now look back, with recognized names like J. Kerry, J. Fonda etc… at a  safe and rational distance, away from the heat of Kent State and Watergate and My Lai.

I have seen the things people here in VN carry, on their shoulders, on their scooters.

But inside, unless they sit down and tell me, the hidden things that they still carry are scary.

Those with vivid memories are dying one by one, on both sides of the Pacific.

We got scholarly volumes and doctrine (Powell) on the conflict.

And we eventually got Burger King and Dunkin here in VN. It’s like the tunnel is finally closed  with sign which says “Go away, leave the past alone”.

For here or to go?

It’s Future Land now. Happy Land. Disney Land. Dream Land. It has to be.

Yes. Young students carry a lot with them today: book bags, smart phones,  eye glasses, cigarettes, lighters, even IDs. No dog tags. No Zippos. No memories.

Just a bunch of “nic’s” and passwords. Everything is in the Cloud. On Facebook. On Drop Box and Mail Box.

To search for them. Easy. Just Google. In Vietnamese, or English. No translation needed. Sorrows of War or The Things They Carried. Instant access.

Perhaps that war, Vietnam that was, was the last  “hardware-driven” conflict.

No wonder, the things they carried, seemed awfully heavy and burdensome when viewed from a light-weight I-pad.

Fool’s errand?

On NYT‘s Op-Ed‘s Pages, I found a piece “Asians are too smart for their own good”.

The author brought up a historical parallel between Jews’s admission at Ivy League schools back then, and Asian‘s now.

She neglected another important parallel: Japanese-American got put in internment camps not too long ago. With BRIC‘s second generation, growing up in America, demographic make up will once again be more diverse.

By 2050, Asia will have stepped up to claim its top spot. By then, demand will outweigh supply of needed talent.

White Ivy League students are more than welcome to prepare themselves for the day, same way I was sent to French school, then to EFL schools, then to State School, then to Private schools etc…. Gotta to pay the price of admission.

Not just the tuition.

Besides, with global communication and global commerce, Ivy League Institutions themselves are facing crisis. High-valued professors from these places are moon-lighting and contracted out to the highest bidders in Singapore, Taiwan, Hong Kong, China and India anyway.

I am not sure who has done more learning: professors or students in these regions.

America is still a magnet and market for the likes of Google’s founders, for now.

But the jury is still out for the next big thing. Cisco , Google and GE are agressive in talent acquisition.

A degree from an Ivy League school might get you into the door, but does not ensure your staying there, much less rising.

I am not naive about the climb from within, with glass ceiling and all.

But give society and corporations some time.  First women, then minority. (at this edit, Lean In has just come out – giving modern women something to discuss).

There are no rush to judgment. I understand the timeliness of this issue (admission to college. It’s called Senior panic). But one needs to take a long view back (to WW II at the very least) and forward (2050).

It’s a wonderful and widely connected world. There is no need to play the victim card. Just the value card. After all, the genes and genius cannot be hidden for long. We got Youtube, Twitter and Linkedin. If those platforms are not enough, invent your own “religion”. There is no need to be a follower. Asian families are better at making followers than leaders out of their children.

The weakness lies in its strength: Tiger Mom reproduces Tiger mindset. On that note, Jewish mothers can agree with Asian mothers: “They” are after us. So unfair! Personally, I don’t think it will ever be a fool’s errand for anyone (Asian are a subset) to be overly educated and enlightened. It’s our mission in life.